Wednesday, January 07, 2009

I had a gig in Mill Valley last night. I always do this gig with mixed feelings. Well to-do liberals are a curious bunch. They have Obama pins, Free Tibet pins, Peace symbol pins and every other cause you can think of on their lapels while standing in $500 shoes. Part whole foods attitude and part guilty rich white guy gets you a recyclable brand of condescension to deal with. But all went well with my set. There were no gasps of horror or long awkward pauses like I get with this crowd sometimes. I stepped outside to get some air. On a brick wall someone had left post-it notes that read, End Gaza Siege.This is the Marin I know!You want to take a stand on an issue but you don’t want to leave graffiti? The solution? Post-it protest!Sure, they are protesting but why bring down property values? You can be the rebel that doesn’t leave a mark. Because lets face it, opinion can change but paint shouldn’t have too.

There is something so anal about writing the same phrase over and over again and then placing them on walls and cars like your leaving a note on the fridge to remind the roommates about the phone bill, that I think it violates the sprit of protest. What are you going to tell people if they ask, what did you do to stand up to aggression?I left post it notes on walls.

I am not making fun of anyone. I am not making fun of the tragedy that war is. War should always be seen as a failure. Not an option. But if someone thought this was a worthy way to enlighten the public and it’s the Bay Area so of course they did, then isn’t this trivializing the issue?Or maybe there is some Palestinian sitting in a bombed out school thinking to himself, I hope some where in America a socially aware activist has access to office supplies!

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Ever save up a couple of hundred dollars and your car find out about it? When the check engine light comes on it shouldn’t be in the shape of an engine. It should be in the shape of a dollar sign. A mechanic told me that with all the computers in cars now soon your car will send info about the problem directly to a mechanic who can tell you what the problem is and how much it will cost. Great.How soon before the car has access to my bank account too? Just send the money to the mechanic.

OK Starbucks. All those people waiting for their drinks and then you put the milk and sugar in a place that maybe two adults can stand side by side in? I don’t care that you sell CD’s, plates, Books and bottled water that will somehow save the third world. Make some space for the reason we go in the place.

I am becoming an old man. I don’t understand most of the technology around me anymore. I swear. I am going to be the old man yelling at kids with jet packs on.“Get out of my sky!”

I have become more dependant on this technology. My phone contains everyone’s phone number. When I loose that, and I loose it pretty often, so goes my contact with the rest of the world. I was down town recently when I realized I left my cell phone and wallet at home. For a brief second I felt anxious. Almost as if I was stranded on an island outside the normal flow of digital interface. And really, I was. No money is its own isolation. No cell phone and you become other people. Know what I mean by that? With everyone walking around wearing giant sunglasses and ipod ear pods, you become other people. Other people are merely soft obstacles to get around while you chat away with some other person on some other street doing the same thing. Throw in the back ground noise of any city and you start to realize how much none of us live in the moment at all. In fact, we seem to be farther from now than at any other point in our history.

When my car was broken into on Christmas day, I suddenly realized there is someone out there with worse karma than me. All they took were the contents of my glove compartment. That included various guilty pleasure CD’s, Registration of the car, a few maps, some oil change receipts and a wrench. The radio was left untouched. Most of the CD’s were too. Why would you take oil change receipts and not Brian Adams? I don’t have to guess. On a stick-it note in clear deliberate handwriting, the thief left behind his opinion of the CD’s. Brian Adams received a single word- Seriously? A friend suggested I take that to the police and have them dust it for prints. My only response was, seriously?What would the police say when presented with such evidence? I wonder?

What is the emotional equivalent to the check engine light? Chain-smoking is one. I wonder what mine is? It would be so much easier if we all had one. You could see a person with theirs switched on and know you have to get them help. Course these days with all the economic insecurity the sign would probably be a money symbol.